Perhaps there’s something in the air. Maybe it’s the media hype. Or it might be the pressure of societal expectations. Whatever it is, this season always seems to bring out the extremes in human behaviour.

On the bad side of the season, you have the Shopping experience. If you believe the Christmas commercials on TV, shopping should be a happy time. Lots of cheery, helpful staff, plenty of friendly-looking fellow shoppers with toothpaste-fresh smiles and joyous Christmas music playing in every store. What you actually get are dead-on-their-feet sales associates, hell drivers in the parking lots, and brawls in the toy aisles as desperate parents slug it out over the last Sing and Snore Ernie. Even if you actually like shopping, trying to be a consumer after October 13 is a dangerous proposition.

On a more serious note, there’s Christmas crime. In Cincinnati once, thieves stole more than $1 million worth of Christmas toys when they drove off with entire tractor‑trailer rigs. Perhaps the thieves were inspired by The Sopranos. . Small time burglars stick to jimmying open doors on cars in plaza parkades, or breaking into homes just prior to the big day — but the principle is the same.

Your computers aren’t immune to seasonal shenanigans either: my local hospital was one of many taken out by a cyber attack this season, with doctors having to chart on paper. That doesn’t sound so bad, but it does when you don’t have paper forms for this sort of thing anymore and worse, staff will have to spend a lot of time manually entering this stuff into the records when systems come back online… while still seeing the usual amount of patients.

Then there’s the case of the shopping mall Santa. I remember reading about how some little brat in the lineup decided to butt in before it was her turn, snapped Santa’s beard, and kicked him in the groin. Had it been me, particularly after dealing with a long line of screaming children all day, I might have been tempted to thwack her with a candy cane. The Santa, however, simply told her she was bad and sent her to the back of the line. The mall manager promptly fired Santa. A Merry Gentleman indeed.

On the other hand, Christmas does seem to bring out the good in people. One of my favourite stories from way back in the 1980’s was how Stanley and Mary Grandish of Edmonton, both elderly, never did figure out who their mystery benefactors were. Starting in 1985, the couple received anonymous gifts from all over the world symbolizing the 12 Days of Christmas. The presents were both beautiful and extravagant, and a wonder.

More good news: a radio station doing a test on honesty left a Christmas parcel at the side of the road. The finder had the option of calling a phone number on the parcel tag to return it, or keeping it for their own. Someone did find it, and they called the number to return it. Good on him, but the kicker: The man was homeless and penniless. And better still was the public’s reaction to the story. Astonished by the man’s integrity, job offers and donations of food and money came pouring in. The man gained employment, a mobile home, and enough cash to see him through to the new year.

Now you could argue that the homeless man was just as deserving of employment, a home, and cash donations before he “proved his worth.” You’d be right. The story does have a Rudolph vibe to it. We should be better to people all year round.

But maybe the most important concept to remember about this type of holiday though, is that we’ve set it aside as a time where we’re supposed to be good to one another. Whether you celebrate this kind of thing as Christmas, the Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Ramadan; whether you do it for religious or personal reasons, in December or at some other time of year, the key point is this: every once and a while we humans say to each other, “Look, let’s be on our best behaviour for a while, okay? Let’s gather up the family, reconcile with neighbours, give stuff to others.”

Considering our checkered past of wars, persecution, crimes and atrocities, it’s nice to know that we think that there are times when we should make that extra effort to make things better. We don’t always get it right, but at least we agree we should be trying, and we should be doing so more regularly.

That bodes well for the future, don’t you think?

Happy holidays.

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